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Need another surgical strike, says Army chief Bipin Rawat

General Bipin Rawat, the Chief of the Army Staff, says India needs to launch another surgical strike against terrorists, and thinks the situation at the border with Pakistan won’t improve unless the Pakistan government can control its military and its intelligence service.

“As long as the Pakistan government can’t control its Army and the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence], the situation at the border won’t improve,” General Rawat told India Today TV.

“Targeting policemen shows the terrorists’ frustration,” he said.

On Friday, terrorists abducted and killed two Special Police Officers and a constable in Jammu and Kashmir’s Shopian district. A policeman’s brother was also abducted, but set free. Earlier in the week, Pakistani troops killed a Border Security Force soldier.

Hours after the killings of the policemen in Shopian, the government called off a meeting that was to be held between the foreign ministers of India and Pakistan on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. “The latest brutal killings of our security personnel by Pakistan-based entities and the release of a series of 20 postage stamps by Pakistan glorifying a terrorist and terrorism confirm that Pakistan will not mend its ways,” the Ministry of External Affairs said.

It was Imran Khan, Pakistan’s new prime minister, who proposed the meeting. He said he was disappointed by India’s decision, and described the response as “arrogant” and “negative”.

This Saturday — September 29 — marks the second anniversary of the surgical strikes.

On that day in 2016, an Indian Army team crossed the Line of Control and destroyed terrorist launchpads, days after several Indian jawans were martyred in a pre-dawn attck on the Army headquarters in Uri.